“Happy and successful cooking doesn't rely only on know-how; it comes from the heart, makes great demands on the palate and needs enthusiasm and a deep love of food to bring it to life.”
- Georges Blanc, Ma Cuisine des Saisons!

February 18, 2008

Potato, Apple, Arugula soup is my contribution to Lisa from "Food and Spice" for her "No croutons required" event. For this month's theme, she asks us to cook a "vegetarian soup" which makes even carnivorous diners drool! Hope they all drool over this yummy soup!! Thanks for hosting Lisa!:))

About "Soup":According to the dictionary, "Soup is a liquid food prepared from meat, fish, or vegetable stock combined with various other ingredients and often containing solid pieces."The word soup originates from "Sop", a dish originally consisting of a soup or thick stew which was soaked up with pieces of bread.One of the first soups made is dated back to about 6000 B.C. and was made of hippopotamus or the hearts of 5 sparrows!! Ahhhh!!!:D (Info from WIKI)

I found the recipe for this soup in a one pot dish cookbook. Combination of hearty chunks of Potato, sweet-tart Apple and spicy, peppery Arugula which is rich in Vitamin C and iron, with added beans, red peepers and light spices, it sounded great to me. So here it is, enjoy and absolutely no Croutons needed for this soup at all!:)

Any crusty bread you like to serve with soup. I had Pretzel bread roll.

To make the soup:1. Heat the butter in a heavy bottomed deep pan. Add onion and potato cubes and saute for 5-7mins stirring constantly.2. Add in Apples, red pepper, Kidney beans and stir. Pour in the veg stock, Allspice pd, salt and pepper to your taste.3. Bring to boil, turn down the heat to simmer, cover and cook for 15mins.4. Add Arugula (or Spinach), lemon juice, simmer until potatoes are fork tender.5. It's ready eat now but if you want the soup creamy, take out 1/4 of the soup and blend and pour back into the soup. I prefer chunky veggies in thin stock.6. Garnish with Apple slices or few Arugula and serve it warm in bowls with crusty bread. This serves four people easily. Great comforting soup for cold Winter days!

I made a popular Indian savory and sweet "Fruit Chaat" for Marta from "An Italian in the US" blog for her "Fresh Produce of the Month" event. She has chosen "Orange" this month. Thanks for Marta!:)

Fruit Chaat is a popular Indian savory "fruit salad" and with added tangy, spicy Chaat powder to chilled sweet assortment of fruits makes it a very refreshing, lip smacking dish to have in Summer or any day! It also makes a great side dish with Barbecued meat too!:)

To make it:1. Mix all the assorted fruits in a bowl with lemon juice, chill it in the fridge for an hour.2. Add the spices, mix gently and chill again to serve on it's own or with BBQ meat.

Chaat Masala: Chaat masala powder packet is available in any Indian store. If you want to make it at home, here is how to make a simple Chaat pd, some have cloves etc but I like this. Amchoor is the main ingredient which is a tangy powder made by dry Mango slices.

2 tbsp Mango powder (Amchoor), 1 tsp Cumin seeds powder, 1/2 Ginger powder, pinch of salt, 1/4 tsp sugar, 1/8 tsp each of red chilli pepper and black pepper. Mix all this and store in air tight container and use as much as you need to mix with fruits or to sprinkle on snacks.Have a great week!:)

Posted by
Asha

59 comments:

The soup looks chunky and delicious, love the look of it too. Ahhh chaat, reminded me of eating this from the street vendors, used to love it. Nice entries :) Howz the weather there now? Last week you said it snowed right?

Hey Asha, as always I'm amazed by your new additions. Was unable to see 2 pics of the latest ones. How do you make your dishes look so good?! It's like when we go to a restaurant saying we are not hungry, but as soon as we open the door we feel starved...it's the same effect going through your blog :). Delightful.

Vini, glad you liked them. It's just fun to add new combos and experiment a little when cooking dishes!:))I can see the pics now, just checked but I think few are having trouble seeing them, don't know why! Will check again!:)

Hi F, how are you doing? Still have ears? :DYeah, this is purely vegetarian, yummy to taste with addition of Peppery Arugula and Allspice. Hope you try!:)

Totally new combination Apple and Arugula, in fact it threw me off. I have heard about Arugula from Rachael Ray's cooking. She calls it rocket lettuce or something and says it is spicy. Is that true? I need to try it once.

soup looks delicious ashakka. much needed one for me. not keeping well today. got running nose with fever and throat infection. there is a drastic change in the weather here. the night temp was -10 deg celcius.

Vimmi, they are all my blog buddies,so I try and make something for all their events if I can!:))Dakshin is excellent. Also buy few Mallika Badrinath's books in India, they are great and inexpensive too.Pani Puri with 5 waters, YUM!

lg, stock gives all the flavors, without it soup would be little boring!:)

Sig, had some blogger/Google problem y'day. I couldn't get into my own blogs for few hrs and it was frustrating but it's working fine now. It happened to lot of blogs too, we were all complaining by hundreds! Apple is great addition, sweet and tart, try it!:)

Oh Sia, so sorry. This year, Flu is really nasty here too, it lasts for 3 weeks at a time. Rest and have some hot and spicy soup. That's all we can do until it goes away. Take care of yourself. Hugs!:))

Wow , everything here suits to my taste today , no non-veg dish :)) . soup looks yummy , i can really slurp it all without having crontouns :)) . . that salad is simple yet so tempting ,thats what your creativity is my lovely friend. A beary hug to you :) .thanks a lot for sharing all the recipe.

Asha,thanks a lot for taking part to the event! It looks really good! I'm sorry, but I still didn't receive your email! I don't know what's going on. In any case, I sent myself an email remainder, so I'll be able to add this lovely entry to the roundup.

Marta, I am puzzled too! All my entries are going to your spam. I did follow all your e mail protocol as you said in your post! Hmmm..!! Strange!I can send you again if you like. Glad to see you here though. Enjoy!:)

Thanks Annu, glad to see you here too girl. Try it this weekend.Visit Foodie's Hope, that's my main blog ie if you don't know about it. These are dishes cooked just for events and posted here!:))Have a great weekend.

Hi Asha!I like any kind of soup, spacially with potatos. Your soup sounds very yummy and you serve it in beautiful way.Soup is healthy, specially in winter.Thanks for this inform about soup. Very interesting.

Apple in a soup? That's so different. I've never tried this combination before. Fruit chaat looks so simple. With my hubby at home all day I'm trying to do different dishes to impress him. So, this chaat is on the list. Will be trying out soon.

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